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A Priestess is a woman who acts as a conduit between the Heavenly and the Earthly realms, as our world shifts and turns and re-awakens it's ties to the Divine Feminine the role of the Priestess is once again coming out into the light of day. The Priestess Grove is a sanctuary of Priestess tools, ideas and inspiration to encourage the growth and re-emergence of Goddess consciousness back into the third dimensional world.

The Bridge Between my Head and my Feet

I love my higher chakras. I've loved them for as long as I can remember.

Singing and chattering away from the moment I knew how to make sound, I revelled in my fifth chakra, the fifth chakra is the chakra of expression, it is the space that we speak our truth from, the centre for singing, speaking, writing and creating.

I am perhaps most familiar with my sixth chakra, since it is the one I have used most throughout my life, the sixth chakra is the energetic house of the third eye, second sight, inner vision and psychic awareness.

I spent days in imaginary worlds, had fictional names, wrote make-believe stories. I remember vividly the day that my French teacher told my parents : "Candise comes to class, but Candise is never really in class." This teacher had given me her rocking chair to use and sat me close to the window, a welcome escape from my narrow, hard, four sided desk and chair. Yet still my mind wandered to more magical, fun, inspiring worlds within myself. There were some early clues at my psychic sense as well. When I was three I announced who was calling as the phone rang, I once shouted out the name on a billboard that was only print, years before I could read. To pass the time in my high school sociology class I would whisper a colour to the person sitting next to me and point to a fellow student.

"Pink, or orange," I would whisper, and then: "Patricia, what's your favourite colour?" "pink," she would answer. I remember being frustrated when I couldn't move objects with my mind or see through walls. I searched endlessly for fairies in the grass and high up in the clouds. Yes my sixth chakra is a close friend of mine and a space that I know well.

My seventh chakra, has also been well used. This is the chakra at the top of our heads, it is the space where we come into individuation, it is the connection between our conscious self and the Divine, the angels and the spirit realm. In junior kindergarten at the ripe age of four I was awarded the 'prayer' award. This was because Anna, another little girl in my class, was often ill and I would come home disturbed that she wasn't well. "Let's pray for her," my Mother would suggest and we would. I was raised in a metaphysical family, taught that 'God' loved me regardless of anything I ever did or thought, that there was no such thing as hell and that prayer was my way to talk to 'Him'. I talked to 'Him' constantly and as I grew into a troubled and sad child and teenager my communication with God only strengthened. I prayed about many topics such as death, Heaven and leaving this Earth realm that always felt too dense and harsh for me.

The top three chakras have always been a safe space for me.

The bottom three chakras however have not felt as safe, in fact I avoided them for most of my life. The further down I went the more uncomfortable they became. The third chakra, where the will is strong and fierce was overly so for me and I felt fire burning in my belly, anger churning and a rage that seemed so uncontrollable that I either let loose and raged as a wild teen Maiden or disassociated as much as I could once I found my spiritual path. I feared my rage would overtake me and that the fire would drive me to the brink of madness. I went from the extreme of acting out as a young girl to completely numbing out as a young adult.

Further below lies my second chakra. This is the chakra where our emotions lie, the space of desire, pleasure and connection. I have had a love/hate relationship with this chakra. For the first 21 years of my life I fed it whatever it craved, if it felt good I did it, and as much of 'it' as I could. It seemed that pleasure was the only consolation for a dark, scary and unjust world , a world that I often regretted choosing to incarnate into. And so this chakra was also overactive, addictions galore came my way and while I loved the highs and the temporary satiations, inevitably the cravings would return and this chakra too, seemed to be one with the potential to drive me mad. When I turned to my spiritual path I starved this chakra, afraid of worldly comfort and pleasure, certain that it would engulf me and that the pursuit for it's fulfillment would preoccupy my every waking moment as it once had.

Finally my root chakra. The root is our connection to our tribe on Earth, it is our root to this Earth plane, it governs safety, security and abundance. I don't know if I ever grounded down into my root chakra at all in this lifetime, not until my mid 20's that is. The chakra of safety and security is one that is strengthened in the first year of life and then fed throughout one's lifetime. My first year was tumultuous. It began with a traumatic birth, followed by hospitalizations in my first three months, followed by extensive eye appointments and a financially insecure home. As I grew I was surrounded by aggression, anger, and financial fears. I found solace in my upper chakras as I attempted to hide from the world.

When I dedicated my life to a spiritual path eleven years ago I didn't think I needed to come into my body or connect to my lower chakras. It made more sense to me to remain in my upper chakras. After all, wasn't that the spiritual goal? To transcend the body and be free of mortal desires was the pursuit of every mystic, and since I began my journey as a purely mystical one I was in no hurry to connect to the messy, cruel and scary human realm.

The benevolent Goddess had other plans for me however. In that first year of spiritual study and practice I began to have dreams about using my hands to heal, I knew nothing of energy work at the time and was living in a very industrialized part of the East Coast, a place that had heard even less then I had about these things. A few years later and a change of coast found me opening the back of a local paper to read about an 'Integrative Energy' course. I was abuzz. Finally there would be someone who could guide me in the use of my hands that I had become accustomed to placing on people who were feeling ill or sorrowful. I was inspired and hopeful and oh so excited.

My enthusiasm quickly changed to horror as the teacher explained that in order to open up to the Universal energy that would flow through us we would need to come down, deep down into our bodies. From that moment on it seemed that all areas I was called to learn from required me learning how to ground. My energy training, the Medical Qigong course that I took, my Priestess apprenticeship, yoga, in all areas my teachers were calling me to come into my very frightened and frozen body. Of all of the reasoning and explanations given to me for coming into my body, it was the imagery given in the book 'The Mists of Avalon' by Marion Zimmer Bradley that compelled me to try coming into my body. The imagery that she elicits as she describes the character Morgaine grounding down as deeply as she can, in order to conjure the energy that she needs to part the mists stayed with me.

I was terrified to ground down. Scared that I would lose my sense of the Divine, afraid that my psychic abilities would vanish. At a deeper level I understand now that I was also afraid of feeling all of the wounds that had been frozen in my lower chakras.

Interestingly enough, being willing to 'ground down' into my body, as scary as that decision was, didn't make me able to do so. Once I finally made the decision to get into my body it was a process, one that took years and one that continues to take work on my part.

What I have found as I have come into my body is this: in allowing my body to be inhabited fully, and my Spirit to be free to soar and to raise in vibration, I am connected to my Priestess self. In order to connect to the Priestess archetype a relationship with both the body and the spirit is needed. Until I got into my body my spiritual experiences were very mind based, they were cool, calculated, detached and unempathetic. I would listen in an unmoved manner to other people's struggles, certain that if they meditated more they would be rid of their base emotions that were doing nothing but cluttering their potential to be close to the Divine. I had many moments of sorrow over my struggle to feel love, to be moved at the depths that I had been as a wild and lost Maiden, and yet despite this sorrow the idea of connecting to my body had been the last thought in my mind.

When I began to breathe life into my lower chakras with the support of others, I was finally able to access my heart again. The heart chakra is the transitionary chakra, the space where the lower chakras and the higher ones meet. The heart chakra is where the Priestess archetype lives as she balances Heaven and Earth. I met the Goddess when I came into my body. She is here with Her children on Earth. She is in the plants, the rocks, the roots. She is in my roots.

Coming into my body brought me into the therapist's chair, into deep sorrow and grief, it unravelled years of abuse that I hadn't realized I had endured, it challenged me to feel it all, to truly heal by walking through the pain. I felt genuine anger and then genuine forgiveness, I learnt about the beauty of passion ignited, when it was done with consciousness. I learnt how to trust the Divine to hold me safe and this opened me up to learning to trust others. The bottom chakras brought me to life. If I was meant to be floating in the ethers I wouldn't have come into a body. This body of mine is a gift. The pleasures, the emotions, the choices that I have while I am embodied is a cornucopia of opportunity to truly transcend the lower vibrations that exist in this realm by being a container for higher ones. My body is my container, from this grounded being comes the ability to love and to reach out to others.

I thank Goddess for the plan that She has for my life, for the direction that She has guided me in. Her gentle touch has allowed me to be fully incarnated and to be fully alive here on Her.

If you are feeling ungrounded, or detached from any of your lower chakras, some practices that you could use to open up to the flow of the lower chakras are as follows:

Grounding meditations. Any meditation that involves you coming down into your body, growing roots from your sit bones, going deep into the Earth are all guided means of bringing your consciousness into your body. Breathing the Spirit of your being right into the very soles of your feet.

Simply paying attention to the sensations in your lower chakras. Most of us in the Western world are detached from our body. Breathing and focusing on the space at the bottom of your ribs and sensing into what it feels like, envisioning yellow light spinning in a clockwise direction draws you into your third chakra. Allowing your breath to then descend lower into the region just below your belly button, the womb space for women. Feel into what is alive and churning in this space, so many emotions are stuffed here, women tighten this area, breathe and pay attention to what it feels like to be loose and aware of this space. Then sink lower with your breath right down to your sit bones, feel into the space between your sit bones and see how close this part of your body feels to you. Many ungrounded people, myself included, feel as if the bottom portion of their body is much further away then it is, this is because the Spirit isn't fully in the body yet.

On a regular basis just pause to check in, can you feel your legs and your feet beneath you? Paying attention to your feet and your legs begins to ground you.

Dance is a wonderful tool to awaken the second and first chakra.

Hitting a bag of rice (duct taped first) with a wooden mallet releases and opens up the third chakra.

Wearing the colours of the bottom three chakras or taking colour infused baths strengthen these energetic spaces: red, orange and yellow.

Receive some energy work.

Read Barbara Brennan and practice some of her exercises.

Visit a therapist, counsellor or 12 step program.

These are all practices that I have utilized over the years to get in, and to stay in my body. It isn't easy living in a body, many times I am tempted to leave, to escape a painful or frightening experience. Yet I have found that as I learnt to come into my body and committed to not abandoning her in moments of peril, that life is a lot less scary and a lot less painful when I am present through it all.

Presence has been the gift of coming home to myself and presence is the gift that I hope to continue to maintain and to offer my family, community, self and Goddess from this day forward. Presence exists for me when I am embodying all seven of my primary chakras. What began as a path of mysticsm for me has become the path of Feminine Mysticism, the merger of the body and the spirit. I have found that life in the body is life itself while I am here on Mother Gaia, my hope is to maintain and to extend the love that lives in my heart.

My grounded body has become a contained vessel that is able to hold and to radiate the love that my heart had been pulsating always, a love that I can now feel and access thanks to bridging the great divide between my head and my feet.

Candise is an ordained Priestess of Grace who works with the Butterfly Spirit as her totem, and as a professional Psychic Channel.Candise practices a faith that she has named 'Feminine Mysticism'. In mysticism we acknowledge the One Source and recognize all else as human hypnotism. In Feminine spirituality we embrace duality and marry it, forming non-duality. It is through the practice of Feminine Mysticism that Candise utilizes ritual as a tool to see beyond the hypnotic suggestion of this realm.Priestess' have practiced the art of marrying the energies from this Earth realm and the Higher realms together for many moons now. Mystics endeavour to find Source behind the suggestions of illusion. Thus the Feminine Mystic approach to life is to marry the Truth of perfection with the human experience. This is the path that Candise Priestess', the Spiral Path of Grace, the path of the Feminine Mystic.
My services are offered both in person and via distance, one on one or in group settings, depending on what it is that you are in need of. You can find my services at : https://priestessofgrace.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/services/ To receive any of these services, or to ask any questions you can reach me at PofGrace@outlook.com
Grace Be With You,
Priestess of Grace,
Candise Soaring Butterfly

Comments

Thank you so much for sharing this!! Like you, I've always been more comfortable in my higher chakras. It's taken years of yoga practice, not to mention Reiki training, for me to finally start to "come down". Glad I'm not the only one who's working to stay grounded and whole in myself!

Thank you Jen. It's so great to relate to others! It's been a journey and it's totally been worth it, you're definitely not the only one working to stay grounded and whole within herself, not by a long shot!